Educational complexes as a stage of reform general education – is optimization for the good?

The article considers the issues of the processes of merging, consolidation, and unification of various educational organizations (preschool educational organizations and municipal general education schools) into educational complexes (on the example of Moscow and the Moscow region). The accumulated experience of the existence of educational complexes is summarized, the positive and negative aspects of the association of educational organizations in general education are described. Among some positive results, the availability and opening of additional high schools were noted; accessibility, openness and diversity of specialized classes; some "strong" schools managed to pull up more "weak" schools. Among the negative aspects of the association, the following are highlighted: the gap in continuity between various links: primary, secondary and senior; low psychological safety of participants in the educational process in educational complexes; the achievements of schoolchildren in different divisions of the educational complex and in different classes are uneven and can vary greatly; additional paid education for children is additionally costly for their parents; the possibility of undermining the psychosocial and age-related aspects of normal socialization and personal development of a student due to the heavy workload of academic subjects; disproportionate funding between the structural divisions of the complex; reduction of teacher rates; destruction of a unique director's corps (directors and his deputies within one school as an established team of professionals); loss of the individuality of the educational organization, established values and traditions; a preschool educational organization can become, as it were ,an "appendage" of the school; with a large number of children in the educational complex, the phenomenon of depersonalization can occur, students become a "gray mass" , etc. It is emphasized that not only economic and managerial efficiency is important, but also pedagogical. Education specialists need to take into account the existing shortcomings of already operating educational complexes in order, as a result, to achieve the goals and content of education, primarily for students.